Mega-spell of Juvenile Thayer's Gulls in our neck of the woods ... or landfills, as the case may be.

January and February provided us unprecedented opportunities to observe Thayer's Gulls in Wayne County, especially juveniles.  Of the 15 or so Thayer's Gulls I saw, I was able to photograph several.  What follows first is a series of iPhone digiscope shots of probably the best documented of them.  These photos were taken January 23, on a day where I myself saw at least 8 different Thayer's Gulls between the Carlton landfill by Crosswinds Marsh, and Belleville Lake, right at Belleville Road.  This is probably a pretty typical looking January first Winter Thayer's Gull, albeit on the dark side.  Actually, the primaries and especially the tail appear quite on the dark side for this species, (as I know it).

 

Dark, straight bill, rounded head, large and dark centered juvenile scapulars, nicely checkered coverts, dark centered tertials with pale edges, dark primaries with pale edges.

 

 

 Nice look at the Primary and Secondary pattern.  Note dark outer webs on P6-P10 and dark tips on Primaries, especially P5-P10.  Secondary coverts similar to lesser and median coverts, in contrast to the dark secondaries.

 Underwing silvery pale - Primaries with dark tips

 

Dark tail against pale but patterned coverts.

Nice overall flight shot showing the above mentioned characteristics.